In a digital television system, users typically search for program viewing information in an electronic program guide (EPG). An EPG is a dataset of program and schedule metadata that relate to programs available from a user's local headend (a programming provider's channel lineup) during an interval of time, for example one week. A user searches for programs by designating keyword terms to perform a text search of program titles. A search result, typically a program title, that fits the criteria of the search is known as a “hit.”
Television programs can also be found by searching for program attributes, not just keywords from the program title. Although a program's title can be viewed as one attribute of the program, the term “attribute” is used more technically in the multimedia arts to describe many non-title characteristics of a program. As such, attributes include an unlimited myriad of characteristics about a program and its presentation. A program and its attributes typically fit into a vast hierarchy of EPG information. Some attributes, such as “category,” may describe a broad set of programs of which the program being sought is a member, that is, the “category” attribute describes a hierarchical level inclusive of the program being sought, so that a user's search for the “category” attribute results in hits for every program in the category. A search for “westerns,” for example, may result in many hits belonging to the western movie and television genre.
Attributes can also describe characteristics proper to a program title, i.e., attributes can describe options that cause two versions of the same program to vary from each other. This narrower type of attribute describes elements of the EPG hierarchy “below” a particular program, i.e., that cause the same program to have different flavors. For example, one version of “The Mountain” starring Spencer Tracy may have attributes of “black & white” and “monophonic” while another version has attributes of “color,” “DOLBY® Digital,” “close captioning,” and “rated PG.” A text search limited to keyword elements of the title will bring up both versions as hits, whereas a text search for keyword elements of the title combined with an attribute search for “Dolby” will bring up only the DOLBY® digital and DOLBY® Stereo sound system versions.
A conventional text search for a keyword element of the title is performed by entering keyword text into a search field of a user interface (UI), and a conventional attribute search is performed by entering the attribute criterion (e.g., in checkboxes) separately from the text search keywords in a separate part of the UI, or in a separate UI altogether. Hits from the separate text search and the separate attribute search are logically combined only at the end of both searches to produce a hit list.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional text search 100 and a conventional attribute search 102 wherein the text keywords and the attribute criteria are entered separately, such as in a search field separate from attribute checkboxes that are displayed via one or more UIs.
At block 104, the text keyword(s) are input. At block 106, the attribute criteria are input separately from the keyword(s) input. A text search is performed 108, typically on the program title, using the entered text keyword(s), and an attribute search is performed 110 using the entered attribute search criteria. Each separate search yields separate results 112, 114. Filtering logic 116 may compare the results 112, 114 and produces a hit list 118 that typically satisfies both the text search 100 and the attribute search 102.
Since users are typically required to search for attributes in a separate part of a UI, many restrict their search input to keyword style queries of program title words only, while others incorrectly enter attributes as keywords for a text search of program titles without realizing that the digital television system interprets the attributes thus entered as ordinary program title search terms.